ERIC ED350203: William Heard Kilpatrick (1871-1965): Philosopher of Progressive Education and Teacher of Teachers.

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Parker, Frp.nklin

William Heard Kilpatrick (1871-1965): Philosopher of
Progressive Education and Teacher of Teachers.
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''^Biographies; Educational History; Educational
Theories; '^Progressive Education; ^Teacher
Education

''^Kilpatrick (William Heard)

ABSTRACT

This paper is a brief biographical sketch of William
Heard Kilpatrick who was a leading advocate of progressive education.
A 22-item bibliographical essay is included. (DB)

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^ William Heard Kilpatrick (1871-1965) , Philosopher of Progressive

Qf^ Education and Teacher of Teachers

^ by

Franklin Parker

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Franklin Pailcer Januar>'24, 1992

School of Education and Psychology
Westa-n Cai-oiina University
Cullowhee. NC 28723

William Heard Kilpaaick (1871-1965), PMlosopher of Progressive Education and

Teacher of Teachers
By Franklin Parker

William Heard Kilpatrick was bom in White Plains, GA, sonof Jaines Hines Kilpatrick. a
Southern Baptist minister, and Edna Perrin Heard, a teacher. He had an orthodox upbringing and
did well in school. In 1 888 he entered the sophomore class at Mercer University (Baptist, Macon,
GA). excelled in mathematics, and earned the B..A degree in 1891. A Mercer trustee encouraged
him to study mathematics and physics at Johns Hopkins Universit>^ 1891-92. There he was
transported from a conservati\« rural atmosphere to a liberal community of inquiring scholai-s.
Mercer granted him the M. A. degree in 1892 for his Johns Hopkins graduate study. Because of
administrative changes, he did not get a hoped-for Mercer teaching job.

His first teaching post at Blakely Institute, a combined elementary and secondary public
school in southwest Georgia, requit^ed that he attend a July 1892 summer session at Rock College
Normal School. Athens, GA. There he learned of tlie educational theories of German educator
Friedrich Froebel. kindergarten founder and learning-tlirough-pl ay advocate (Kilpatrick later wrote
Froebel's Kindergarten Principles Critically Examined. New York: Macmillan, 1916); and of
Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestaiozzi, who urged teaching by encouragement without harsh
discipline. He was impressed by Education Professor Otis Ashmore, who told of the interest
stiinulated among his students at Chatham Academy, Savannah, GA, so tliatthey studied without
supervision in his absence. Ashmore's example, Kilpaoick later wrote, was the origin for his 1918
project method article. At an April 8, 1 893 , Chautauqua tent meeting at nearby Albany. GA, he
heard visiting Cook County (IL) Normal School director and progressive educator Francis
Wayland Parker. He then read Leila E. Patridge. The "Ouincv Method" Ulustrated (New York:
E.L. Kellogg, 1885), describiiig Parker's successful progressive education methods used while he
was Quincy, MA, school superintendent. He Uiught matliematics in the eighth, ninth, and tenth
grades at Blakely and was co-principal , 1892-95. There he first experimented with nontraditional

teaching and admimstration.

He again studied at Johns Hopkins University, summer 1895; then taught seventh grade in
the Savamiah, GA, public schools, 1896-97. He also studied at the University of Chicago under
John Dewey, summer 1898, later noting that he was not iniUaUy impressed by Dewey. He was at
Mercer University, 1897-1906, taught matliematics, was vice president, 1900, and acting
president, 1904-06, but resigned when the trustees were concerned about his doubting the virgin
birth. Summer sessions he attended while at Mercer University included Cornell University.

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summer 1900, under Charles deGai-mo, disciple of Johaim Friediich Herbart, and a Rockefeller
Foundation-sponsored summer school for ceachers, Knoxville, TN, where he heard psychologist
G. Stanley Hall. He taught in Columbus, OH, in 1906-07 before enrolling as a student at Teachers
College, Columbia University (TCCU), in 1907.

Dean James Earl Russell had merged progressi\'ism and professionalism to make TCCU a
leading U.S. teacher education center. Kilpatrick studied under Dewey, who had left Chicago for
Columbia University in 1904, Paul Monroe; major U.S. educational historian, E. L. Thorndike,
and others. He impressed Monroe in a class paper documenting the beginning of Dutch schools in
New Amsterdam (New York) in 1638, not 1633, as previously believed. Teaching histor>' of
education part time, he began a dissertation cn Benedict Spinoza, found insufficient material,
returned to the origin of Dutch schools, and completed his dissertation in 191 1 (Monroe helped get
it published by tlie Depai'tment of tlie Interior as The Dutch Schools of Ne w Netherland and
Colonial New York, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1912).

In 1908 Kilpatrick wrote in his diar>^ "Professor Dewey has made a great difference in my
thinking. " Dewey wrote to Professor John A. MacVannel, Kilpatrick's major professor, "He is
the best I ever had." Kilpatrick spent the rest of his professional career and long life at TCCU
where he was a student, 1907-09; received the Ph.D. in 1912, was lecturer in education, 1909-11;
assistant professor. 191 1-15; associate professor, 1915-18; professor of philosophy of education,
1918-37; and tliereafter emeritus professor.

Kilpau-ick was catapulted to fame by his 1918 article, "The Project Method," Teachers
College Record, 19 (September 1918), pp. 319-335. By "project" Kilpatrick meant any
purposeful learning activity which the student wanted to do wholeheartedly. This active, interest-
motivated, and life-like activity was seized upon by progressive teachers as a useful curriculum
device. Course content was divided into units orprojeas students could complete alone or in small
groups under teacher guidance. The project method, seen as a welcome antidote to traditional
education, gave Dewey's child-centered education a practical teaching methodology and was a
paradigm shift from subject- and teacher-based education to child-centered education. It was
popular in progressive elementary schools in the 1930s and was revived in the open classroom
atmosphere of the late 1960s.

Kilpatrick commanded attention at TCCU by his courtly manner, erect stature, and lion-like
mane of silvery white hair. He attracted students by using small group discussions. With notable
skill he divided educational problems among small groups in a large class, each group discussed a
specific problem, a group chair reported findings to the large class (numbering in the hundreds),
followed by discussion and debate. His success in this procedure earned for him the title of the
"Million Dollar Professor, " wMch came from the headline of a New York Post article (March 6,
1937) by David Davidson, estimating that his 35,000 graduate students paid over a million dollars
in tuition fees to TCCU before he retired in. 1937.

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He mairied Maiie Bemaji Guytoii(tliey had three childi*en) on December 27, 1898 (she died
May 1907); he then married Margai-et Manigault Pinckney on November 26, 1908 (she died
November 1938); and finally married Marion Y. Ostrander on May 8, 1940 (she had been his
secretary).

He taught summers at the Uni\^rsity of Georgia, 1906. 1908, and 1909; the University of
the South (Knoxviile), 1907; was visiting professor, Northwestern University, 1937-38, and
taught summer sessions there, 1939. 1940/1941; taught summer sessions, Stanlord University.
1938; Uiiiversity of Kentucky, 1942; University of North Carolina, 1942; and University of
Minnesota, 1946. His trips abroad included school visits, lectures, and meetings with prominent
educators in Italy, Switzerland, and France, MayJune 1912; Europe and Asia, August 1926 June
1927; aiid round the world, August-December 1929.

He received honorary LL.D. degrees from Mercer University. 1926; Columbia University,
1929; and Bennington College, 1938 (which he helped found in 1923 and where he was presideii:
of the board of trustees. 1931-38); tlie honorar>'' D.H.L. degree from the College of Jewish
Studies, 1952; and the Brandeis Award for humanitarian service, 1953.

After retiring from TCCU , 1937. he was president of the New York Urban League, 1941-
51; chairman of American Youth for World Youth, 1946-51: chairman of the Bureau of
International Education, 1940-51; and on the board of directors of the League for Industrial
Democracy.

Kilpatrick had severe critics but many more admirers and followers. His eighty-fifth
birthday, November 20, 1956, celebrated at Horace Mann Auditorium, TCCU, resulted in a
special March 1957 issue of Progressive Education. "William Heard Kilpatrick Eighty-Fiftli
Anniversaiy." containing 10 articles. Both heralded and criticized as Jolin Dewey's chief
educational interpret^*, Kilpatrick was a leading advocate of progressive education. He died after a
long illness at age 93 on February 13, 1965.

References

Kilpatrick gave to the Special Collections, Teachers College Library, Columbia University
a handwritten 6'vdry (begun 1904) of over 40 volumes, scrapbooks, unpublished papers, and a
two-volume typescript from taped interviews with his biographer, Samuel Tenenbaum. An oral
histoiy memoir is in the Special Collections, Butler Library. Columbia University .^chives. His
14 books and 375 articles are listed in "Writings of VViUiam Heard Kilpatrick," Studies in
Philosophy and Education. Vol. 1 (November 1961), pp. 220-230.

His more important books include Foundations of Method. New York: Macmillan, 1925.
which expands on his project metliod (translated iiito Chinese, Japanese, and Russian); Education
for a Changing Civilization. Macmillan, 1926 (translated into Japanese, Russian, Arabic,
Portuguese, German, and Italian); Education and the Social Crisis > A Proposed Program. New
York: Liveright. 1932: The Educational Frontier. New York: Appleton-Century, 1933» containing

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his articles and aiid articles by other leading progressives (he was book editor), and said to be tiie
characteristic progressivist work of the 1930s; Group Education for a Democracy. New York:
Association Press, 1940 (translated into Japaiiese, Korean, and Spanish); and Philosophy of
Education. New York. 1951 (translated into Spanish).

Samuel Tenenbaum, William Heard Kiloatrick: Trailblazer in Education. New York:
Harper, 1951 , is the authorized biography based on taped interviews. Other biographical sketches
are William Graebner, "William Heard Kilpatrick" in the Dictionary of American Biography.
Supplement Seven. 1961-1965. John A. Garraty, editor, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons,
1981, pp. 434-436; and Franklin Parker, "William Heard Kilpatrick, 1871-1965," School and
Society. Vol. 93, No. 2264 (October 16, 1965), pp. 368-371. Insights about Kilpatrick's
influence are in John L. Childs, .Ajnerican Pragmatism and Education, New York: Holt, 1956;
Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American
Education. 1876-1957 . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961; Ernst Papanek, "William Heard
Kilpatrick's International Influence: Teacher of World's Teachers." Progressive Education .
Vol.34. No. 2 (March 1957), pp. 54-57 (entire issue has 10 evalur tive articles honoring Kilpatrick
on his eighty-fifth birthday); and "W. H. Kilpatrick: After 93 Years," Teachers College Record.
Vol. 66, No. 4 (January 1965), pp. 346-364, containing three articles. Topical selections from his
writings are compared with others in Leslie R. PetTV, editor, Bertrand Russell. A.S. N eiil. Homer
Lane. W.H. Kilpatrick: Four Progressive Educators, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1%7.

Critics include Albert Lynd, Quackery in the Public Schools. New York: Grosset and
Dunlap. 1953, pp. 212-253; and Augustin G. Rudd, Bending the Twig: The R evolution in
Education and Its Eff -^ct on Our Children. New York: Sons of the .American Revolution, 1957. A
Catholic critic is Joseph McGlade, Progressive Educators and the Catholic Church. Westminster,
MD: Newman Press, 1953.

Thirteen contributors evaluated his influence in a special issue on "William Heard
Kilpatrick, 1875-1965," Educational Theory. Vol. 16, No.l (January 1966), 98 pp. Obituaries
appeared in The New York Times. February 14, 1965, p. 92; New York Herald Tribune.
February 15, 1965; and San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 1965, p. 26.

Franklin Parker

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